Paulo Coelho on Six Secrets to Mastering Social Media

By

Paulo Coelho

Sep 28, 2011 9:00 am ET

The act of writing allows me to feel truly alive. Knowing that I have sold 140 million books worldwide (and given an average of three readers per copy, have reached half a billion people), I have always wondered who these readers were who understood so well what I was saying. How could countries with such different cultures, like Israel and Iran, for example, be interested in my books? When I started using social media, without any assistance or planning, two things guided me: the curiosity to find out who reads my work and the challenge of writing on such a different platform.

My participation in social communities has carried on instinctively. But, to my surprise, when I recently logged on to Facebook, I noticed I had more followers than Madonna. At the moment I am writing these lines, the singer I admire and respect has 6 million “likes”, while I am close to 6.5 million. How can a writer—relatively unknown in the USA—reach so many people?

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